How I dealt with stakeholder conflict, got stung badly, and learned something valuable in the process 😊

Part 2: The story of my experience that taught me my greatest professional learning. Part 1 is here

In Part 1 of this blog, I narrated my horrible experience of two of my senior stakeholders in serious conflict. If you’ve not read that blog, you might want to read it first, lest this blog might not fully reach you.

The stung badly part

I was on my flight back to Bangalore.

Only a couple of days earlier, I was in Minneapolis. I was establishing my life in the US after having moved there just 5 months earlier.

The project was supposed to last 5 years. But the serious conflict between sponsor and the business owner aborted the project.

On my entire journey back home, I was reflecting on these nagging questions: What is my role in this conflict? Did I cause the conflict? Did I respond appropriately to the conflict?

The last question in particular kept chipping away at me: did I respond to the conflict appropriately? Was stepping away from the conflict the right decision? Was asking the stakeholders to resolve their differences and then give us a shout not the right approach?

Stakeholder Engagement — the best practice

I moved on. Other projects came my way and I got busy.

On a relatively lighter Monday, I stumbled upon a blog on Stakeholder Analysis.

I was intrigued by its structure.

It said that not all stakeholders are equal.

Every stakeholder must be mapped on a 2 x 2 Interest — Influence matrix

I was particularly fascinated by its notion that, as a BA, I get to choose how…no scratch that…I am duty bound to choose how I collaborate with each stakeholder.

The Oh! Man! moment

As I reflected on these new inputs, the mistake that I committed revealed to me in a flash.

Both KF and ES are High Power — High Interest stakeholders. The nature of collaboration that I had to maintain with them was to engage closely. Which meant that I had to engage them even more closely during their conflict. What I did was the opposite!

As I continued to reflect, I imagined how the situation might have unfolded had I collaborated with them closely and supported them in conflict resolution, instead of abandoning them.

The Possible Conversation

Let’s assume KF and ES agreed to let me facilitate an open, reflective, free flowing conversation between them. How would that conversation have looked like?

Me: Gentlemen, thanks very much for agreeing to participate in this conversation. The focus on this meeting is for us to understand each other’s perspectives in the context of the conflict that we’re all enduring.

I wish to first spend some time on isolating the issue in conflict. Is that okay?

KF: Sure.

ES: Perfect.

Me: Thank you! As far as I can see, the focal point, the epicentre of the conflict is the release plan, right? Specifically, the frequency of each release. There is consensus regarding everything else in the release plan as well as the project in general. Am I right?

KF: Right.

ES: Absolutely.

Me: So KF, may I request you to help us get your perspective, please. Why is it that you need a monthly release? Why is the longer gap between releases not acceptable to you.

KF: Here’s the deal, gentlemen. I want to be able to control the direction of the project. If we’re going wrong, I want to have the opportunity to course correct. How would I know if we’re headed in the right direction, if the indicators of that direction isn’t coming in regularly and frequently?

Me: Sorry KF. I don’t think I understand. What course correction are you talking about?

KF: I’m talking about the product we’re building. If I don’t get to see the product more frequently, how do you expect me to evaluate if we’re going in the right direction?

ES seems to catch on.

ES: Oh, you’re referring to the other project that failed last year, right?

KF: Exactly. We did waterfall there. The team delivered the product an year after we commissioned the project. By then the environment had changed. The challenges were different. The team hadn’t understood the requirements correctly in the first place. It was a total mess! I am not doing the same mistake again.

ES: Aaah…I get it. But, I have the opposite problem KF. My end users aren’t very educated and bright. If we release an update every month, they’re not going to be able to keep up. We would have won the battle, but lost the war.

KF: I didn’t think of that. You’re right.

Me: Maybe there is another option. What if we do a monthly release internally. ES can choose to combine a bunch of internal releases and make a production release. Maybe we all win with this approach.

ES: I like that.

KF: Seems like this would work!

The Conclusion

They say experience is a good teacher. Failure is a better teacher.

I learned the greatest lesson of my professional life by failing to do my job. Know you stakeholders well. Not all of them are equal. Engage closely with High Interest — High Influence Stakeholders